Local artists Valerie Callister and Lehansa Samaranayake with SAM curator of community Caroline Esbenshade (middle). Photo: Shepparton Art Museum.
The busy hum around SAM Open 2025 has been brought to a fever pitch.
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During the Shepparton Art Museum’s official exhibition celebration on Friday, October 31, SAM curator of community Caroline Esbenshade announced the winners of the SAM Open 2025 People’s Choice Award: Valerie Callister as the adult winner and Lehansa Samaranayake as the youth winner.
This year, the annual open-call group exhibition featured 66 works by local creatives aged 16 and older.
Visitors were allowed to cast only one vote for the People’s Choice Award, making the selection of a winner a tough task, to say the least.
Ultimately, Callister wove into the hearts of many with her entry, Mycelial Threads.
This intricate textile art mirrored the complexity of fungal structures and their interconnectedness with the environment, drawing inspiration from photographs taken during the artist’s travels.
Valerie Callister with her intricate textile work, Mycelial Threads. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum.
Similarly, Samaranayake’s award-winning work was touching.
Her precisely applied paint and harmonious palette lent a spectral majesty to the canvas, resulting in the self-portrait titled Bear Hugs From A Distance.
The piece captures the painting prodigy’s yearning to embrace a long-distance friend, with a teddy bear standing in for her until their next meeting.
Lehansa Samaranayake with her realistic self-portrait, Bear Hugs From A Distance. Photo: Shepparton Art Museum.
Ms Esbenshade praised both works, noting their technical skill, uniqueness, and tactile quality.
“Samaranayake’s skill in rendering the teddy bear in oil paint creates a masterful illusion where, if only we could touch, our hands would be met with the soft nap and hard resin of the plush toy,” she said.
“Through different textile fibres, Callister creates that unique texture only mushrooms seem to have – you can almost smell wet leaves and moss.”
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